The Thieves of Faith (38 page)

Susan looked up but Michael was already out the ante-room door, the light of his flashlight disappearing around the dark hallway corner. She chased him out and raced down the hall. She found him in the ancient lounge staring at the walls.

“Do you mind telling me what you are doing?”

Michael said nothing as he walked to the wall, examining a large tapestry. It was about ten by ten, depicting a royal hunting party, swords at their sides, Russian wolfhounds running next to their ebony horses. Michael grabbed the bottom of the cloth piece of artwork and with all of his might pulled it from the wall. There was a brief resistance but it popped its ancient holds and crumbled to the ground. He rolled it up, stepped to the next tapestry, and did the same thing. As he rolled it up, he turned to Susan. “Do you mind helping?”

“Help with what? What the hell are you doing?”

“We don’t need more air, we have plenty.” He pointed to the far wall. “Grab that one and let’s go.”

“I’m so confused right now,” Susan said. She walked across the room and without a moment’s thought ripped a Russian tapestry from the wall. “What a waste.”

Michael said nothing as he left the room with the two tapestries under his arms.

Susan grabbed hers and ran back down the hall to the cistern to find Michael rolling the tapestries out on the floor.

“Do you mind sharing?” Susan said.

Michael barely glanced up, lost in his examination of the large carpets. “We don’t have enough air because we have to fight the current; we’ve been so wrapped up in trying to figure out how to beat the current that we let the obvious solution just sit there.”

Susan looked at him as if somehow she would suddenly understand what he was saying. “OK…” She nodded. “You lost me.”

“The only reason we need more air is because of the suction and the effort we have to expend to fight against the torrent of water in the pipe. But if the suction stops…”

Susan looked at the tapestries, thinking. And she smiled. “You’re going to clog the drain.”

Michael looked at her, impressed, and smiled back. “We’re going to clog the drain.”

Michael reached into his dive bag, pulled out three timers, and laid them on the ground. He reached back in his bag and pulled out the sealed bag containing three hunks of individually wrapped malleable Semtex.

“What are you doing with those?” The sight of the Semtex put a nervousness in her voice.

“Once the drain is clogged the water is not going to have anywhere to go. It will either flood out the area above where we are to meet up with Paul or worse, the waters in here will rise and flood out the Liberia.”

“But what are the explosives for?”

“We are going to have to time this just right. Get your gear on,” Michael said as he checked his tank. “We are going to have to throw timed charges down there. Once they are on the bottom we’ll throw the three tapestries. That should be enough to clog the bottom of the pipe, which should alleviate the flow of water. We’ll have to race to the surface while making a short decompression stop at the thirty-foot mark. But we need to be out of the water before the charges go off, otherwise we are going to get sucked down and this time there will be no grate of bones to stop our descent.”

They both quickly dressed. Tanks, helmets, masks.

Michael removed the golden box from the satchel at his hip and examined it briefly before stuffing it in his water-tight dive bag. He pulled out the ruby necklace for Paul and hoped he was not already reaping the fruits of his misdeeds. He placed it along with his med kit and supplies in the satchel and sealed the dark pouch in his waterproof dive bag to be doubly sure.

He picked up the timers, set them for seven minutes, and jammed them into the packs of Semtex. He individually wrapped each one back in its plastic wrap to ensure the timer wouldn’t jar loose in the current when it crashed into the bones and bodies at the bottom of the drainpipe. He placed them in his waist bag and turned to Susan. “I need you to take one of the tapestries. Once we are in the water and near the entrance to the main pipe, you are going to have to hold all three tapestries and pass them to me as I need them.”

Susan nodded.

Michael looked back at the room; this would, in all likelihood, be the last time it would be seen for years. He thought it a shame to have such treasures hidden away but he knew that some secrets were never meant to be learned. He grabbed two of the large carpets and jumped into the cistern. He clipped on to his safety line and let the tapestries soak up the water. Susan lowered herself in the water behind him.

“Keep your eyes on me,” Michael said as he checked the various dive bags clipped to his body.

Michael hooked the safety line to Susan and they both submerged. The tapestries became heavy and unwieldy as they swam downward through the five-foot-wide tube. As they approached the main pipe, Michael could feel the current, his helmet light illuminating small particles as they whipped by in the slipstream moving downward to oblivion. Michael braced himself in the mouth of the cistern pipe, reached into the dive bag at his hip, and pulled out the three charges, each glowing red with a seven-minute count on its display. He looked at Susan and nodded to be sure she was ready. She nodded back, the first tapestry in hand.

Michael flicked the switch, threw the first charge out into the main pipe, and watched as it instantly vanished in the current. He released the second and third explosives in succession and watched them disappear into the torrent. He turned to Susan and was met by the unwieldy floating tapestry. He struggled as he manhandled it past himself out into the main pipe, but once it hit the current, it took on a life of its own, spinning like a dishcloth down into the void. Susan passed him the next one and he watched as it floated by him like a flying magic carpet, only to quickly sail away into the riptide as if under its own power. Michael turned to Susan, took the last tapestry, and took her by the hand leading her down to the mouth of the cistern pipe. He let the third tapestry go and reached for the main line. The tremendous force wrenched him downward; it took all of his effort to fight the raging waters. He clipped on to the main rope, turned, and unclipped from his safety line. Just as he began to clip Susan to the main line, the current slowed and came to a sudden halt, the constant low hum disappearing as if the volume was turned off. The silt and sediment swirled in all new directions; without a pulling force, it had lost its bearings and began to float aimlessly.

Michael pulled Susan out of the tube and motioned her to start pulling herself up the rope through the forty-five-degree angled pipe. Michael remained right behind her as they started their ascent. It was practically effortless. His arms had renewed strength, having grown accustomed to the constant fight of the prior current. Before he even realized it, they were at the thirty-foot mark. Michael grabbed Susan and they stopped to let the nitrogen work its way out of their system. It had taken them more than fifteen minutes to go one hundred and twenty feet before. This time they made the ninety-foot angled climb in less than sixty seconds. Michael kept an eye on his watch and after two minutes nodded to Susan. They made the last thirty feet in less than twenty seconds, finally breaking the surface.

Susan lifted her mask and spit out her regulator. “I never thought I’d be happy about seeing this place.” She looked around at the dark man-made cave, her helmet light bouncing off the newly placid waters.

“Quit talking and get out of the water.” Michael was watching the water rise around them. It had nowhere to go for the moment and was doing its best to climb the walls and rise up onto the shore.

They both swam for the rock outcropping, pulling themselves on shore as the waters continued to rise. “Get to higher ground,” Michael insisted. “We only have another minute before the charges go off.” Once they blew out the bottom grate, the water would begin raging again. Michael forced his way up a slight incline and sat back against the rock wall, catching his breath. Susan collapsed next to him and began taking off her gear.

Suddenly, there was a squawk from the induction field radio that lay on the ground next to their stuff. Michael opened it and pulled out his walkie-talkie.

“Michael, where the hell are you?” Busch said through heavy static.

Michael looked at his watch and the water. “Relax, we’re back.”

Michael looked at the calm waters and, as the second hand on his watch crossed the twelve, he heard a muffled series of explosions. Just as suddenly, the once-calm water began to churn and recede down the walls to its original level.

“What is it?” Michael asked. “Are you guys on your way?”

“On our way?” Busch shot back.

And Michael’s stomach suddenly contracted. He didn’t need to ask, he heard it in Busch’s voice, everything was falling apart.

“Michael, whatever you do, don’t open that box. Do you understand? You have to get out of—” Busch was abruptly cut off, his voice barely intelligible, drowned out by gunfire.

Busch and Fetisov raced down the hallway, bullets ripping into the walls around them. The large Russian leaned out the operating room door, both barrels blazing, tearing a path of gunfire toward them. Busch tore open the elevator machine-room door and leapt into the four-foot-deep pit. Fetisov landed with a splash in a shallow puddle right behind him, still rubbing his chest where the bullet that would have killed him but for the body armor encasing his torso hit.

“Brilliant, now we’re trapped,” Fetisov complained, his Russian accent seemingly thicker.

Busch ignored him as he spun his gun hand out the door and returned fire, his shots answered with the large Russian’s twin barrel hail of bullets. Busch ducked back, pulled his flashlight, and shined it up the shaft at the escaping elevator. The smell of grease and oil permeated the air as his mind struggled for a solution.

“Great, they’re getting away,” Fetisov shouted as he looked up, “and we’re going to die in here.”

Bullets continued to slam into the walls around the shaft when one pinged off the metal elevator door. Busch quickly examined the open door and turned to Fetisov. “I have an idea,” Busch shouted. “Cover me.”

Busch hoisted himself up the four-foot pit wall and ran down the hall.

Fetisov leaned out the elevator doorway and laid down a suppressing fire, sending their assailant to a retreat. Busch ran down the hallway as Fetisov’s bullets whizzed by his head. He raced down to the theater and grabbed the iron cross he had used to lock up the twenty-five Russian doctors and businessmen. He quickly unscrewed it from the door handle, removed it, and broke into a hunched-over run back down the hall. Bullets exploded all around him as he jumped back into the elevator pit. He pulled the metal elevator door closed behind him and slammed the iron cross over the door handle, quickly screwing the device tight over the frame, effectively sealing them in the room.

Fetisov glared at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Busch shined his light at the elevator panel on the wall, then up the shaftway at the elevator that was already five stories gone, the red security lasers beginning to flash on, climbing skyward. He looked back at the elevator box’s series of controls and hit the center button, labeled in Russian with a red flame. The elevator, sixty feet above their heads, clanged to a sudden halt, the noise echoing about the ten-story shaftway. “What I came here for.”

And then there was another clang and the elevator began its descent as it responded to the fire recall button. Descending at a much more rapid rate.

The gunshots resumed from outside in the hall, this time hitting the door dead on.

“How many are in that elevator?” Fetisov asked.

“Two, maybe three, guards.”

“How do you know they are not working with the guy on the other side of that door?”

“I don’t, I’m just hoping.”

The gunshots continued from the hallway; between their loud report on the door and the elevator mechanics, the room was beyond deafening.

The elevator continued its descent, now only two stories above their heads, the security lasers winking out on approach.

“You may want to duck,” Busch shouted as he crouched down.

“There’s no chance we are going to shoot our way into that elevator without being killed.” Nikolai hunched down next to Busch, the elevator only one story above them now.

“Who said anything about getting in the elevator?”

And it jolted to a halt just above their heads, the elevator pit becoming suddenly claustrophobic.

And the gunshots stopped. The sudden silence brought an eerie stillness to the small mechanical room.

There was confused commotion in the elevator car as it came to a halt. Dead silence and then the sound of rifles cocking in the cab; three guns locked and loaded.

Busch and Nikolai looked at each other, remaining stock-still.

And then the sound of the doors opening, followed by sudden bursts of deafening gunfire echoing up and down the shaft, tearing at Busch’s ears. Staccato bursts of Russian emanated from the cab.

Busch reached over and flipped the elevator switch.

And the sound of the elevator doors hissed closed. Gunfire still continued to echo from the reception area, bouncing off the elevator door.

Busch looked at Nikolai, holstered his gun, and wrapped his arms through a large support beam opening in the elevator undercarriage. Nikolai’s eyes went wide.

Gears clicked as they reengaged and the elevator began its slow ascent.

Busch held tight to the beam as he was slowly lifted off the ground.

Nikolai watched him rise for a moment and then, reluctantly, jumped, catching the undercarriage and pulling himself up next to Busch. They looked at each other but remained silent as they drifted away from the floor.

The elevator climbed one, two, three stories up. Busch looked down, his thoughts a jumble as he pondered what they would do once the elevator reached its destination. His arms ached with the strain of his two-hundred-and-fifty-pound body.

After five stories, they both looked down but the floor had been swallowed by darkness. Their feet dangled in space as they both began to concentrate, breathing deeper as if it would somehow give them strength.